Subscribe
The latest psychology and neuroscience discoveries.
My Account
  • Mental Health
  • Social Psychology
  • Cognitive Science
  • Psychopharmacology
No Result
View All Result
PsyPost
PsyPost
No Result
View All Result
Home Exclusive Cognitive Science

A new study has found being angry increases your vulnerability to misinformation

by Eric W. Dolan
January 7, 2021
in Cognitive Science

Enhance your understanding of the human mind and mental health trends. Click here to follow PsyPost on LinkedIn.
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Human memory is prone to error — and new research provides evidence that anger can increase these errors. The new findings have been published in the scientific journal Experimental Psychology.

“My interest in the impact of anger on misinformation came from both real-world experience and research,” said study author Michael Greenstein, an assistant professor at Framingham State University.

“From the real-world side, there’s this phrase that people say — ‘don’t get emotional.’ That phrase is somewhat often used to describe anger and the idea that when you’re angry you’ll make poor decisions, which would also imply poor memory use.”

“From the research side, anger is an interesting emotion because it somewhat defies traditional classifications in that it’s a ‘negative’ emotion, but it impacts cognition in a lot of ways that are more similar to ‘positive’ emotions.”

In the study, 79 participants watched an 8-minute excerpt of the film Defending Your Life. The participants then completed two challenging cognitive tasks and a scripted interview. During this second portion of the study, the participants were randomly placed into one of two conditions: an anger condition or a neutral condition.

“In the neutral induction, the experimenter behaved professionally and politely. In the anger induction, the experimenter was disorganized, dismissive, insulting, lost documents, provided only vague instructions, created unnecessary work, and interrupted the participant,” the researchers explained.

The participants then completed a short quiz about the film that contained bits of misinformation. For example, the participants were asked to respond to the question “What do Daniel and Julia sit on during their conversation when Julia drops her purse?” However, Julia never dropped her purse in the film.

To further induce feelings of anger, those in the anger condition then wrote about a time in their lives when they had been made angry. Those in the neutral condition, on the other hand, wrote about a time when they visited a museum.

Finally, the participants were given an 80-item test designed to assess how much they could accurately recall about the film and how much misinformation they had absorbed.

The researchers found that anger did not impair the ability to recognize details actually present in the film. However, those in the anger condition were more susceptible to misinformation than those in the neutral condition. In other words, angry participants were more likely to misattribute details from the initial quiz to what they had seen in the film.

The researchers also found that participants in the anger condition tended to be more confident in the accuracy of their memories. But among those participants, increased confidence was associated with decreased accuracy. Among those in the neutral condition, in contrast, increased confidence was associated with increased accuracy.

The findings highlight that “memory is not like a video camera,” Greenstein told PsyPost. “That finding is decades old, but studies continually show that the average person doesn’t know it in spite of this being one of thousands of studies replicating that finding.”

In addition, “anger doesn’t simply make someone’s memory worse,” he said. “Instead, it makes people more susceptible to the types of memory errors they were already making (because memory doesn’t work like a video camera.)”

As with all research, the new study comes with some limitations.

“This is a preliminary study,” Greenstein said. “It established what anger is doing to memory, but not how. So discovering the mechanisms for how (and eventually why) anger is impacting memory will be an important next step.”

“Just because something is a memory error doesn’t mean it’s bad,” he added. “Researchers, like myself, are interested in looking at whether people remember something true to their initial instance of remembering it, so any changes to memory from that instance are considered errors. However, any time that you learn something after the fact that is closer to reality than your memory was, anger can help make your memory more accurate.”

The study, “Anger Increases Susceptibility to Misinformation“, was authored by Michael Greenstein and Nancy Franklin.

ShareTweetSendScanShareSharePin22Send

Thanks for reading! Click here to support PsyPost by becoming a paid subscriber. In an age where information is abundant but quality knowledge is scarce, PsyPost ensures that you stay updated on the most recent and relevant discoveries made in psychology and neuroscience.

STAY CONNECTED

TRENDING

New neuroscience research upends traditional theories of early language learning in babies

Psychological and neurobiological foundations of musical pleasure illuminated by new research

Owners of sex dolls are less prone to sexual aggression, but also have lower sexual self-esteem

New insight into social anxiety: How emotional context alters face perception

Scientists revisit Solomon Asch’s classic conformity experiments — and are stunned by the results

Decoding addiction: Study identifies brain circuits impacted by dopamine surges

RECENT

AI scores in the top percentile of creative thinking

Decoding addiction: Study identifies brain circuits impacted by dopamine surges

Longitudinal study links childhood pet attachment to lower adolescent anxiety

Psychological and neurobiological foundations of musical pleasure illuminated by new research

New insight into social anxiety: How emotional context alters face perception

New study reveals promising effects of psilocybin in treating severe depression in bipolar II disorder patients

A video game might be effective in reducing fear of needles in children

Scientists revisit Solomon Asch’s classic conformity experiments — and are stunned by the results

  • Cognitive Science
  • COVID-19
  • Mental Health
  • Social Psychology
  • Drug Research
  • Conspiracy Theories
  • Meditation
  • Psychology of Religion
  • Aviation Psychology and Human Factors
  • Relationships and Sexual Health
  • Evolutionary Psychology
  • Neuroimaging
  • Psychedelic Drugs
  • Dark Triad
  • Political Psychology
  • Contact us
  • Disclaimer
  • Privacy policy
  • Terms and Conditions
Subscribe
  • My Account
  • Cognitive Science Research
  • Mental Health Research
  • Social Psychology Research
  • Drug Research
  • Relationship Research
  • About PsyPost
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In

Add New Playlist

Manage your privacy
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Statistics

Marketing

Features
Always active

Always active
Manage options Manage services Manage {vendor_count} vendors Read more about these purposes
Manage options
{title} {title} {title}
Manage your privacy

To provide the best experiences, we and our partners use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us and our partners to process personal data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site and show (non-) personalized ads. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.

Click below to consent to the above or make granular choices. Your choices will be applied to this site only. You can change your settings at any time, including withdrawing your consent, by using the toggles on the Cookie Policy, or by clicking on the manage consent button at the bottom of the screen.

Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Statistics

Marketing

Features
Always active

Always active
Manage options Manage services Manage {vendor_count} vendors Read more about these purposes
Manage options
{title} {title} {title}